680 or go back to AMD?

[Mikezilla]

I haven't been on the ATi/AMD side since the 4870's released. Should I stay green and go 680 from 570 or should I look into the equivalent AMD offering? How are drivers?

 

[ICDP]

Ironically the AMD drivers have improved since they dropped the monthly driver releases. The latest AMD drivers are fine but the control panel options are limited compared the the Nvidia options. So you will need RadeonPro to get the best out of it. Though if you are used to PhysX and the better control panel options I would advise sticking with Nvidia.

If outright performance is important bear in mind in the majority of games the 7970 is faster. In general the 7970 will be around 10% faster but in some games the performance increase swings massively either way. Do some research based on the games you currently play.

The other thing to consider is that the 7970 is generally cheaper, so price/performance favours the 7970 by a decent margin. The GTX 680 is voltage locked apart from the MSI Lightning variety. So if overclocking is important to you I would advise staying away from the GHz edition cards as they are usually voltage locked.

Long story short, you really can't go wrong with either card to be honest.

 

[TakeNoPrisoners]

I would not buy a GTX 680 as the GTX 670 is so close in performance it is just not worth the extra money. AMD is good if you have a resolution over 1080p.

 

[Aikouka]

It might sound odd, but I "went green" (although, both logos are green now ) mostly for very menial reasons, but I'm pretty happy with it overall. Last I tried, the AMD drivers have an issue with Splashtop where it would drop to Windows Basic after a minute or more of use. It's mostly just an annoyance. The other thing I wanted to avoid was noise. My 5870 and 6950 are rather annoying as they tend to emit this loud whir. I'm just picky, and I've grown to hate that noise.

 

[Eureka]

Quite honestly, I'd say wait. The 570 is plenty powerful and the new cards are coming out soon. Unless your 570 can't get you through another 6 months, then go 7970, unless you want PhysX, then go 670.

 

[lehtv]

I upgraded from a 560 Ti @950MHz (stock 822MHz) to a 7950 @1100MHz (stock 850Mhz). Couldn't be happier, the difference is huge. And the increase in VRAM is a nice bonus.

570 @stock is maybe 5% faster than my 560 Ti, and GTX 680 @stock is about the same speed as my 7950. I agree with TakeNoPrisoners though, 680 isn't worth it over 670. You have three reasonable options: 670, 7950/7970 overclocked, or wait.

 

[Will Robinson]

Quite honestly, I'd say wait. The 570 is plenty powerful and the new cards are coming out soon. Unless your 570 can't get you through another 6 months, then go 7970, unless you want PhysX, then go 670.
__________________

The GTX570 has huge frame latency problems,as noted by Bright Candle and other NV users here.
It must be just a stuttering mess when compared to the ATi cards of the same period.
Unplayable...damn near unsellable almost.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I'm happy with my GTX 680, but I bought it at launch when it was cheaper, faster, quieter and used less power than the available Radeons. (And there was no 670.)

With price cuts, speed bumps, better non-reference cooling, and improved drivers the Radeons are much more competitive than back then.

Now I'd say:
- Do you really need that much speed? A 670 is cheaper and almost as fast
- Does one of AMD / nv have features that you care about? I'd personally pick a 670 over a 7970 but only because the 680 has worked well for me. But so did my AMD 6850 and the 4870 before it.

 

[tviceman]

Definitely agree with everyone on getting a 670 over a 680, but honestly at this point I would wait it out until the end of march. March-April is the rumored roll out of the next line of geforce cards (Kepler refreshes and hopefully gk110) and sea islands is supposed to be coming in April or May.

 

[pauldun170]

The GTX570 has huge frame latency problems,as noted by Bright Candle and other NV users here.
It must be just a stuttering mess when compared to the ATi cards of the same period.
Unplayable...damn near unsellable almost.

Good to know that after a couple years of service my GTX570 is unplayable.
Had i known that it was such an unplayable mess, I wouldn't have used it all these years playing games at max settings.
Stupid POS GTX570...why you lie to me after all these years?

 

[Will Robinson]

Good to know that after a couple years of service my GTX570 is unplayable.
Had i known that it was such an unplayable mess, I wouldn't have used it all these years playing games at max settings.
Stupid POS GTX570...why you lie to me after all these years?

Yeah it's a bitch ain't it:\
Imagine how bad and 'lied to" all those HD7950 owners must feel.....even if they can't see it or feel it...:whiste:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2289221&highlight=

 

[Keysplayr]

Yeah it's a bitch ain't it:\
Imagine how bad and 'lied to" all those HD7950 owners must feel.....even if they can't see it or feel it...:whiste:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2289221&highlight=

And what of those that can? I know, I know, they don't count. AMD themselves just acknowledged the problem with their GCN line when it comes to frame latency. I think you should pass that along to the OP, don't you? Also let him know that Dave Baumann mentioned there would be a fix "sometime" in 2013. heh.

 

[BrightCandle]

The GTX570 has huge frame latency problems,as noted by Bright Candle and other NV users here.
It must be just a stuttering mess when compared to the ATi cards of the same period.
Unplayable...damn near unsellable almost.

Reference: http://techreport.com/review/23150/amd-radeon-hd-7970-ghz-edition/7

Its important to understand the 99th percentile graph says nothing about microstutter, at all. It is actually a graph trying to exclude the worst frame rate drops and give an impression of if the card has quite a lot of these drops. Turns out the 570 does. Infact the more useful graph to show this is the Skyrim frame latencies by percentile, that gives a fuller picture of the what is going on.

The ideal graph is flat and the earlier it curves up the worse the average frames per second will be.

On to the real issue does the 570 microstutter? For that we need to look at the frame time graph.

There are clearly three areas where the card is showing quite a significant microstutter, with a magnitude of 20, 20 and 17. These are very severe microstutter periods, well above my 6ms or so threshold. Otherwise however the card does not microstutter. The 6970 would actuall be worse for me, it consistently has a periodic frame stuttering of a magnitude I can detect, I would find the 6970 unplayable but not the 570, the 570 would annoy me occasionally and I would eventually go and turn a setting down and mess with it as those periods of microstutter would irritate me.

Comparatively we can see a 680 and 7970 Ghz both do much better, with no momentary jumps and almost no periodic oscillations.

Of course if you look at the other games you can see that the experience varies quite a bit, in some games the 570 has no such issues and in others it shows worse. In skyrim I would not play with the settings presented.

I'll keep saying it until it sinks in - if you can't see this you really shouldn't comment on it further, because honestly your opinion is worthless to those that can.
please - no personal attacks or baiting others into replying with personal attacks. -Admin DrPizza
To the op: do you see microstutter in skyrim with the same settings? Do you see the momentary drops in frame rate? Its a worthwhile to test to do because it is helpful to know if you care about these problems or not. Because if you don't AMD is a lot cheaper and faster.

PS - I am not an NVidia user, I own 2x680s and 2x7970s. I have used and played both all year.

 

[f1sherman]

Also... 1280MB gpu running Skyrim at 2560x1600 8xMSAA and NOT skipping and stuttering would contradict the 1st Newton law, 2nd law of thermodynamics and whatnot.

And tbh GTX 570 comes pretty darn close

 

[raghu78]

currently the best value is with 7950. a HD 7950 boost matches GTX 670 at stock. HD 7950 is 3- 5% slower than HD 7970 at same clocks. HD 7950 boost has a stock voltage of 1.25v and overclocks easily to 1100 - 1150 mhz. HD 7950 at 1100 mhz matches HD 7970 Ghz (1050 mhz). nice game bundle with 3 free games.

http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=AT-7950BST

if you want to stay with Nvidia GTX 670 is the better option. similar OC headroom and at the same clocks 3 - 5% slower than GTX 680. 2 free games.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127685

 

[tviceman]

Also... 1280MB gpu running Skyrim at 2560x1600 8xMSAA and NOT skipping and stuttering would contradict the 1st Newton law, 2nd law of thermodynamics and whatnot.

And tbh GTX 570 comes pretty darn close

With the high resolution texture patch, at 1920x1200 I could not play skyrim with 4xAA enabled on my gtx570. It had severe texture thrashing.

The 670's still come with two games (Assassin's Creed 3 and Borderlands 2) whereas it appears the bundles AMD were offering have expired. Taking the Nvidia game bundle into consideration, I personally think the value of the hd7950 is about $20 better than what current gtx670's are going for, not a huge difference overall. Both cards overclock pretty well (the hd7950 overclocks a little bit better, but at the expense of more power draw and heat), so it comes down to whether the games the Nvidia cards come with and Nvidia's ecosystem is worth the few extra dollars to the buyer.

 

[pauldun170]

With the high resolution texture patch, at 1920x1200 I could not play skyrim with 4xAA enabled on my gtx570. It had severe texture thrashing.

Interesting,
I haven't played it in awhile but I don't recall any major issues with Skyrim + high res patch at that resolution.
Its been awhile so maybe rose colored glasses or whatever is starting to set in. Either that or my standards for playabilty is set real low.

 

[BrightCandle]

With the high resolution texture patch, at 1920x1200 I could not play skyrim with 4xAA enabled on my gtx570. It had severe texture thrashing.

The 670's still come with two games (Assassin's Creed 3 and Borderlands 2) whereas it appears the bundles AMD were offering have expired. Taking the Nvidia game bundle into consideration, I personally think the value of the hd7950 is about $20 better than what current gtx670's are going for, not a huge difference overall. Both cards overclock pretty well (the hd7950 overclocks a little bit better, but at the expense of more power draw and heat), so it comes down to whether the games the Nvidia cards come with and Nvidia's ecosystem is worth the few extra dollars to the buyer.

Personally I would choose the 670. Having owned 2x680 and 2x7970's I have found the 680's to have a lot less niggly problems and bugs. To put that in perspective I have 7 open bugs with AMD, problems I found that I couldn't live with and I currently have 0 with Nvidia. If the price difference isn't much then I think the NVidia card is the better buy.

But when the price difference is wider and the performance difference is what it is then it really depends if you can live with microstutter and tweaking the powertune to make it work reliably.

 

[tviceman]

Interesting,
I haven't played it in awhile but I don't recall any major issues with Skyrim + high res patch at that resolution.
Its been awhile so maybe rose colored glasses or whatever is starting to set in. Either that or my standards for playabilty is set real low.

When I turned AA off, the game was completely smooth. It was my experience, but it was very noticeable to me. I prefer smooth frame rates above extreme eye candy, so if the game is averaging 30-40 fps most of the time, I start turning graphical features off. When I upgraded to a gtx670, at 2560x1440 with 4xAA the game was smooth and way more playable.

 

[Will Robinson]

:

I'll keep saying it until it sinks in - if you can't see this you really shouldn't comment on it further, because honestly your opinion is worthless to those that can.

:\

 

[fuddy12345]

I would go with a 7970 since it gets good prices on sales and performs better than the 670 and 680 (in most cases for the 680... definitely 7970 is better for the money). I've heard good things about the new AMD drivers.

 

[Keysplayr]

I would go with a 7970 since it gets good prices on sales and performs better than the 670 and 680 (in most cases for the 680... definitely 7970 is better for the money). I've heard good things about the new AMD drivers.

Join to joke around, eh?

 

[boxleitnerb]

Wait for the refresh. If those cards end up too expensive, you can still buy the old ones cheaper than now.

 

[chimaxi83]

Join to joke around, eh?

What does this post even mean?